Manage schools like a business?

When we hear this question, we always want to know which business! (Most businesses fail.)

Last week, the House and Senate Education Committees held a joint meeting to highlight a US Chamber of Commerce report on education. It was one of those reports that issues letter grades to states -- we tend to discount those, whether they give Oklahoma an "A" or an "F." Education issues are complex and can't be boiled down to a single letter grade.

That meeting generated a lot of press coverage (you can read some here and here). Later in the week, Rep. Ed Cannaday, a freshman member, issued a short press release with an interesting take on it:

During my days as a high school principal, a school board member once asked me why I did not attempt to manage the schools the same way I had successfully managed my former dairy farm operation. I told him the key to my success in the dairy was that I culled the 10-percent lowest producers from my herd each year. If I did the same thing in my school, I could show similar success.

Obviously, we must be cautious when applying business principles to “social service” programs.

How should a state measure the educational system’s efficacy? I agree that student academic achievement must be one of the critical aspects of this measurement. It is in this area that I have problems with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s decision to give Oklahoma an “F.”

As I listened to the speakers at a recent hearing on the Chamber’s report, I was shocked by their lack of understanding of the differences between “criterion” and “norm referenced” measurements. For the last 10 years, the state of Oklahoma has committed its educational achievement measures to criterion reference testing. Actually, Oklahoma schools administer 21 of these tests each year. Specifically, this type of measurement is based on a specified criteria (PASS [Priority Academic Student Skills] Objectives). These are produced as a result of a collaborative effort of subject-area teachers and administrators. These are communicated to the schools through several media sources. There should be a high positive correlation between these objectives and the tests administered by the schools.

On the other hand, norm referenced measurements are set by institutions based on objectives at the national level.

It was in this area that the Chamber chose to give Oklahoma Education a failing grade.

If we are to be measured by such norms, the specific criteria that will be used must be regularly communicated to our schools. It would be accurate to compare the Chamber’s conclusion to a teacher walking into class one day and administering a “pop quiz” and using that to determine the students’ semester grade.